TRANSPORTATION: On Way O

Invitations went out last week to attend the keel-laying ceremonies of U. S. Line's new 30,000-ton passenger ship, as yet unnamed, to be launched from Way O of New York Shipbuilding Co.'s Camden, N. J. yard this week. It was on Way O that the aircraft carrier Saratoga was built. The U. S. Line's new liner will be 705 ft. long, have a beam of 86 ft., a speed of 20 knots. It will be the largest merchantman ever built in the U. S.

In Baltimore last week, at a luncheon given by Baltimore Mail Steamship Co., Vice Chairman Edward Clarence Plummer of U. S. Shipping Board made some pertinent remarks in favor of ship subsidy, largely by means of which the U. S. Line's keel-laying was made possible.

Said he: ". . . 80% of the cost of a ship is labor. The immense subsidies which foreign ships squeeze out of the wages of those who build them and operate them are no less subsidies because they are taken from labor alone than are government payments to ships, to which payments the people as a whole contribute. Is anyone so dull that he cannot comprehend this obvious fact? Why then do critics of our policy ignore it?"